The relevance of food traceability technology

09/03/2017

Today food production and distribution systems are becoming more interdependent. In order to reduce food waste and to maintain a proper value chain that ranges from production to consumption, technologically advanced traceability is required.

Traceability helps to manage the possible risk in the supply chain. By law in Japan, the European Union (EU), and the United States, the current specific standards for food traceability are mandated internationally.

For the most part, there are two types of traceability systems: internal traceability and chain traceability. The first one refers to the recording of data within the organization; the second one refers to the recording data and transferring it through the supply chain. So, depending on the type of business, the traceability can either be dynamic or static. The food traceability technology market is now primarily driven by technologically advanced countries, such as the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. The demand for food traceability technology is continuing to increase worldwide.

There are some restricting factors: the food traceability technology market has additional costs for traceability technology and there are privacy issues with data security because data management, data tracking and security data is cost-oriented. Moreover, the technology is specific to the individual products, for instance, data management is different when it comes to manufacturing than it is with wholesale and retail, and it is also different when it comes to countable and uncountable food products.

Nevertheless, it is clear that newer and smarter technology that is easy to use and universally accessible can bring new opportunities to the food traceability technology players.